Organizational practices promoting employees’ pro-environmental behaviors in a Visegrad Group country: How much does company ownership matter?

Although company ownership (local vs. foreign) has been used as a contingency variable that differentiates companies’ environmental activities and performance, the current understanding of these differences is fragmented. None of the previous studies examined the relationships between company ownership and a complex set of organizational practices which promote employees’ pro-environmental behaviors. The article fills the gap in previous research by analyzing the extent to which a total of 37 organizational practices are used. These practices are divided into technical (20 are related to environmental management) and “soft” (17 are related to HRM policies). For this study, both literature studies and a survey covering 199 companies located in Poland were used. In the theoretical part, the paper presents various typologies of factors that enhance employees’ green behavior, with the focus on organizational practices. There is also a review of studies on environmental sustainability which used company ownership as a variable. The results of the empirical research show that–although in foreign companies environmental issues are increasingly perceived as important or very important–many of the practices which are treated as crucial for developing employees’ eco-friendly behaviors are rarely used in both local and foreign companies. Moreover, company ownership was important in the context of using 88% of the “soft” practices and 50% of the technical practices discussed in the article. The article provides implications for policy and practice, as well as directions for further research.